Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- Security teams wearing riot helmets
and wielding plastic shields marched around a Foxconn Technology
Group factory in northern China in a sign that tensions remain
high after a fight between 2,000 workers halted production.

Foxconn’s complex, home to 79,000 workers in Taiyuan,
Shanxi province, still shows damage caused by a Sept. 23 clash
in which a dormitory fight escalated into a riot finally quelled
by hundreds of security guards and police. More than 40 people
were hospitalized in the melee that left shattered windows and
damaged parked cars across the campus.

Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou has moved to improve conditions
at his factories in recent years, after a spate of suicides and
pressure from the company’s largest customer, Apple Inc. The
unrest underscores the social strains of a Chinese export-manufacturing model where thousands of workers, mostly young,
work long hours in military-style conditions, sleeping in
dormitories and surrounded by security guards.

“The guards here use gangster style to manage,” Fang
Zhongyang, 23, said outside campus gates. “We are not against
following rules but you have to tell us why. They won’t explain
things and we feel like we cannot communicate with them.”

Fang, from nearby Henan province, has worked at Foxconn for
two years. He started in Shenzhen, the company’s biggest
facility, making Apple iPhones and moved to Taiyuan four months
ago after being told that Foxconn wasn’t going to make those
products there anymore.

‘Fierce’ Guards

One guard, a young woman, yelled at a reporter for
interviewing workers near the southern gate and told employees
to get back inside. She ordered the reporter to go across the
street, saying the space outside the gate was Foxconn property.

“They are quite formidable,” said Gao Bo, 25, who has
worked there for six months. “They watch quite closely and
speak fiercely.”

As he spoke, platoons in green uniforms kept formation
inside the campus.

Louis Woo, a spokesman for the Taipei-based company, said
he was unaware of the accusations against the guards.

“If there’s any truth to these allegations, we’ll take
severe action against any security guards, even though we don’t
hire them directly,” Woo said by phone yesterday.

Foxconn isn’t hiring more security, yet it has asked
government officials to help monitor the situation. Woo declined
to say what products were made at the Taiyuan factory. The
employees interviewed said they made small components.

Poorly Trained

Gou agreed with a management decision to shut production
for a day after the Sept. 23 fight, the company said. Foxconn
said it expected limited impact on production.

Workers said the fight started in a dormitory and escalated
when guards employed by independent contractors responded with
excessive force. Such tension is typical in China, said Geoffrey
Crothall, a director at rights group China Labor Bulletin.

“Factory workers anywhere, beyond Foxconn, never have a
good word to say about security guards,” Crothall said
yesterday. “Their training is minimal, they’re recruited en
masse and the requirements are not much.”

Woo declined to comment on the level of training for the
guards.

Foxconn employs more than 1.2 million workers in at least
18 countries, including China, Brazil, Taiwan, Vietnam and
Mexico. It is the primary supplier of Apple’s iPad and iPhone,
Sony Corp.’s PlayStation game console and TVs, and Nintendo
Co.’s Wii console.

Bad Food, Dirty Bathrooms

The average worker at the Taiyuan plant is 20 years old,
with 65 percent being male and 77 percent coming from local
Shanxi province, according to a company official, who declined
to be identified because of the police investigation. That’s
three years younger than the average worker at Foxconn’s
Shenzhen factories producing Apple products, according to a
March report from the Fair Labor Association, which audited the
company’s working conditions.

Foxconn in August raised salaries by more than 16 percent
at a Zhengzhou factory making iPhones and halved the probation
period for new workers after the FLA said the company was ahead
of schedule in improving conditions. Work hours exceeded targets
and legal mandates, the FLA said.

Taiyuan workers start at a monthly salary of 1,800 yuan
($286) and can get a 200-yuan raise after three months. They
also get bonuses during Chinese New Year, after six months on
the job and after a year. Employees can work as much as 36 hours
of overtime a month, the company official said yesterday.

Employees outside the factory said the pay was good, though
their living conditions were not. The food was of low quality,
dorm rooms had four bunk beds for eight people, and the shared
bathrooms weren’t clean.

“The dormitories are too crowded,” said a 24-year-old
worker identifying himself as Wang. “I don’t sleep well because
it’s noisy. The environment isn’t good.”